Serena & Lily is latest online retailer to set up shop on Armitage Avenue

Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune

Armitage Avenue in the Lincoln Park area has become the go-to destination for online retailers to open bricks-and-mortar stores. Online home furnishings retailer Serena & Lily plans to move into a two-level shop, at right, next to Warby Parker.

Armitage Avenue in the Lincoln Park area has become the go-to destination for online retailers to open bricks-and-mortar stores. Online home furnishings retailer Serena & Lily plans to move into a two-level shop, at right, next to Warby Parker. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Armitage Avenue is adding yet another online retailer, reinforcing the street’s reputation as Chicago’s go-to spot for expanding from cyberspace to retail space.

Online home furnishings retailer Serena & Lily plans to move into a two-level shop on the Lincoln Park street, according to its landlord, Acadia Realty Trust.

Serena & Lily leased the 4,743-square-foot space at 853 W. Armitage Ave., where it plans to open a shop in the spring, said Chris Conlon, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Acadia Realty Trust. The space previously was leased to BCBG, a clothing-store brand that went bankrupt.

Serena & Lily, based in Sausalito, Calif., currently has just six shops and one outlet store, none of which are in the Midwest, according to the company’s website.

The tenants immediately east of its planned Chicago space, Warby Parker, Marine Layer and Bonobos, are among a growing list of Armitage retailers that were primarily e-commerce companies before branching out into retail spaces to increase sales and brand awareness.

They’re not the only 21st-century companies settling into Armitage’s 19th-century architecture.

Other brands on the street include Tie Bar, Interior Define, Peruvian Connection, Foxtrot and Black Tux. Streets near Armitage also have welcomed online brands in recent years, including a Blu Dot furniture store on Clybourn Avenue and a Monica + Andy children’s store on Halsted Street.

“When e-tailers like Serena & Lily tour the street, they like that other e-tailers are already there,” said retail broker John Vance, a principal at Stone Real Estate, who was not involved in the Serena & Lily lease. “It used to be that Banana Republic would go next to J.Crew, which would go next to White House Black Market, which would go next to Chico’s. Now e-tailers don’t want to be next to brands that have 200 stores unless that 200-store brand is really cool. They have like-minded customers.”

Higher-end brands also are choosing Armitage because demographics studies show high household incomes and large numbers of online orders coming from Lincoln Park, Vance said.

Acadia Realty Trust was represented in the lease by brokers Anthony Campagni and Elan Rasansky of RKF. The Rye, N.Y.-based real estate investment trust owns several Armitage buildings, as well as retail properties throughout Chicago and other major U.S. markets.

A spokeswoman for Serena & Lily, which sells a broad range of indoor and outdoor home furnishings, declined to comment.

Serena & Lily, founded in 2003, has three shops and an outlet in California, and also has shops in Westport, Conn.; Wainscott, N.Y.; and Atlanta. The company plans to open a store soon in Summit, N.J., according to its website.

The clicks-to-bricks trend has boosted retail leasing at a time when many retail chains, disrupted by online shopping and fresh concepts, are paring their store counts — or in some cases, going out of business entirely.

Chicago is part of a broader national trend in which online brands often lease space near one another, Conlon said. “Warby Parker and Bonobos are real success stories, and other brands want to gather around them,” Conlon said. “They feel like, ‘If Warby Parker can do well there, that’s also our customer, so I should be there too.’ It’s not just about e-commerce. It’s all about relevant brands wanting to be around each other.”